Stranger (to himself). What must I do? Stay; one more argument suggests itself to me. When you see a Straight Line⁠—your wife, for example⁠—how many Dimensions do you attribute to her?

I. Your Lordship would treat me as if I were one of the vulgar who, being ignorant of mathematics, suppose that a woman is really a Straight Line, and only of One Dimension. No, no, my Lord; we Squares are better advised, and are as well aware as your Lordship that a woman, though popularly called a Straight Line, is, really and scientifically, a very thin Parallelogram, possessing Two Dimensions, like the rest of us, viz. , length and breadth (or thickness).

Stranger. But the very fact that a Line is visible implies that it possesses yet another Dimension.

I. My Lord, I have just acknowledged that a woman is broad as well as long. We see her length, we infer her breadth; which, though very slight, is capable of measurement.

Stranger. You do not understand me. I mean that when you see a woman, you ought⁠—besides inferring her breadth⁠—to see her length, and to see what we call her height ; although that last Dimension is infinitesimal in your country. If a Line were mere length without “height,” it would cease to occupy Space and would become invisible. Surely you must recognize this?